As part of the new
NACMA 3 Pillars At Work program, I was privileged to be selected to attend an Auburn Tigers Football game, shadowing their marketing team. Coming from Belmont Univ., a school without a football program, my goal was to soak in knowledge and ideas that we could perhaps put to work with our basketball program. I've taken time to highlight several of the main ideas (a few pictures are included, too) I took from the experience and how we aim to apply them. Here's a short video montage of our incredible experience:
- AU Observation: Opening locker room & hallway for fans to view pregame
- Belmont Implementation: We have a beautiful locker room and locker room hallway, that student-athletes and recruits can see, but why not expose it to our fan base too, on gamedays?!
- AU Observation: Bookstore open on weekend gameday
- Belmont Implementation: Even though we have a spirit shop at our games, why not keep the main campus store open too as a way to engage with more fans moving around campus?!
- AU Observation: Pregame Fan Fest with sponsor being managed by student interns with games, activities, posterboards, prizes, etc.
- Belmont Implementation: Saturday tailgates in our student-center, attached to our arena. “Fan Fest” style with games and food and paint and posters and DJ and TVs showing games & maybe have the team walk through & pep/cheer & coach talk & stickers and gear giveaways and drawings?!
- AU Observation: Very cool slow-mo student athlete turns toward camera, folding arms and stating name and hometown in pregame graphics to announce starting lineup
- Belmont Implementation: Do the same thing for Basketball, where they announce themselves in the starting lineup.
- AU Observation: Script reads would reference a page number in the game day program for more information
- Belmont Implementation: Do the same thing for basketball, baseball and other sports.
- AU Observation: They had an Intro video for the band
- Belmont Implementation: Get more buy-in from our band and cheerleaders by showcasing them on pregame video and graphics
- AU Observation: Hype guy before games and during games on mic with speakers pointed at student section
- Belmont Implementation: Select a cheerleader to put on microphone with speaker pointed at student section to help teach/lead cheers and keep student section pumped up; maybe put him/her on drumkit risers for better viewing
- AU Observation: Showed highlight reels from previous game/season big plays to pump up the crowd before coming back from timeout
- Belmont Implementation: Use 30-40 secs to showcase big plays with audio from past wins/championships to get crowd hyped during TOs or before the game. (We've already done this, and it's awesome!)
I'm grateful to the NACMA 3 Pillars At Work selection committee, the Auburn Marketing Team (Dan Heck), and Korbin Pate (fellow 3 Pillars candidate who also attended) for the opportunity to engage, learn, brainstorm and idea-share.
